Irrigate or mine?

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Ultimate_Waffle

The soul devourer.
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I play Civilization 3 gold addition. I've been playing Civilization 4 for a long while now and just now decided to go back to Civilization 3. I'm having trouble remembering how to play though. When should I irrigate and when should I mine? How much food per city should I be making?
 
The rule of thumb is: irrigate brown, mine green. The exception is when you've got a food bonus that can break through the despotism penalty. As far as how much food, I guess it depends on the city. With that said, each citizen eats two food per turn, and 20 extra food (10 with a granary) results in pop growth.
 
Actually, you can have more than 21 citizens, BUT you won't be able to have more than 12 citizens (24 food) until you research Sanitation...about 2/3 of the way through the game. Games are sometimes won long before that.

The ability for a single tile to produce food generally improves throughout the game. The Despotism penalty makes it hard to produce more than 2 food on a tile without a food bonus, but after you get into a better government, an irrigated grass will produce 3 food...rail that same tile and you'll get 4 food from it.

Larger populations are not always better. I'd prefer 12 citizens producing lots of shields and gold, rather than 30 citizens doing nothing but producing food to feed themselves. :)
 
Thanks for those helpful hints guys :). I do realize the limit population has until certain buildings come into play, but I like to be working all 21 tiles when I'm able to. It's just some weird habit of mine. Can you provide a list of improvements and buildings that enhance food for tiles please? I know that harbors provide +1 food for all water tiles. Another question came up... Does your city necessarily have to be right next to water to build a harbor, or is it that only the fat cross needs to encompass a water tile to build a harbor?
 
The city has to be right next to the water. Just the fat cross containing water doesn't count. So these work (city = X, water W, land = L):

LLW
LCL
LLL

LWL
LCL
LLL

but this doesn't:

WWWW
LLLW
LCLW
LLLW
WWWW

Buildings/techs/govs that help with food:

*Harbor, +1 food in all H2O tiles.
*Granary, city retains 50% of food in storage when it grows
*Non-despotism, no -1 penalty for tiles producing 3+ of food/shields/gold
*Agricultural civilization (C3C), irrigated deserts produce 2 food
*Railroad, irrigated tiles give +1 food in addition to what the irrigation already allows
*Aqueduct, allows a city without a river in the fat cross to grow beyond size 6
*Hospital, allows a city to grow beyond size 12
*Shakespeare's Theatre (Great Wonder), allows that one city to grow beyond size 12
*The Pyramids (Great Wonder), gives a Granary in every city you control on the same continent
*Longevity (Great Wonder), cities grow by 2 instead of 1 when the food meter is full

Agricultural might also give the center city tile +1 food, not sure about that off the top of my head. Certain luxuries (such as Wine) and bonus resources (such as fish) increase food production, as well.
 
I read somewhere in here that you should always mine grassland because you want to try to have every tile producing at least one shield. This will exponentially increase your shield bonus from golden age, mobilization, power plants, etc.

Plains produce a shield already, so it's best to irrigate them.
 
Lexicus said:
I read somewhere in here that you should always mine grassland because you want to try to have every tile producing at least one shield. This will exponentially increase your shield bonus from golden age, mobilization, power plants, etc.

Plains produce a shield already, so it's best to irrigate them.
Click to expand...

That's a "rule of thumb" which often works pretty well, especially in the early part of the game. Like all "rules of thumb, however, there are exceptions. You DO want to irrigate a food bonus, such as wheat on grass, for fast early growth.

Later in the game you may want to have an irrigated, railed grass (supports 2 citizens) to allow one citizen to work a mountain that's been roaded, railed and mined, but produces 0 food. This would be in a core city...maybe even your capitol.

After your cities reach size 12 AND if you don't plan to build hospitals, you may want to go back and mine a plains tile for additional shields.

Also, you don't want mined grass in your fully corrupt towns which produce nothing but 1 gold and 1 shield. In those towns irrigate everything flat for maximum growth for specialist farms.
 
Aabraxan said:
I think (but am not entirely sure) that being next to any fresh water gets an agri civ that bonus.
Click to expand...

Oh yeah, I didn't think about that.

Hm, I have just checked my latest game (as the Inca), and all my cities, even those not next to fresh water, get 3 food in the center tile. Now, I am truly confused :crazyeye:
 
In despotism, agricultural civs get 3 food from the city center only if the city is located on fresh water.

Once you are out of despotism, agricultural civs always get 3 food from the city center.
 
Praha said:
Hm, I have just checked my latest game (as the Inca), and all my cities, even those not next to fresh water, get 3 food in the center tile. Now, I am truly confused :crazyeye:
Click to expand...

I think (but not sure ;) ) that it's only towns (size 6 or less) that only get the 3rd food if they're located on fresh water. Any town needs water to get to size 7+, but I believe aqueducts count for giving the extra food.

Edit: Oops! X-post with Chamnix, and he's far more expert than I am. It must have something to do with the Despot penalty, rather than aquas.
 
As an interesting (to me, at any rate) aside to this agri discussion, I noticed something in one of my recent games that I hadn't seen before. I was playing as an agri civ (probably the Iros, but I'm not sure) and I noticed that captured cities were getting the extra food in the city square even though there weren't any of "my" citizens there! I was pretty surprised by this, as I didn't think they'd get the bonus.
 
Chamnix said:
In despotism, agricultural civs get 3 food from the city center only if the city is located on fresh water.

Once you are out of despotism, agricultural civs always get 3 food from the city center.
Click to expand...

Explains everything! :)
 
Aabraxan said:
As an interesting (to me, at any rate) aside to this agri discussion, I noticed something in one of my recent games that I hadn't seen before. I was playing as an agri civ (probably the Iros, but I'm not sure) and I noticed that captured cities were getting the extra food in the city square even though there weren't any of "my" citizens there! I was pretty surprised by this, as I didn't think they'd get the bonus.
Click to expand...

I'm sure if the developers would have thought a little longer on that aspect, too...they would have agreed with you and programmed the game to reflect that. But, as it is, we still have an un-finished (and will for ever-more be un-finished) game of C3C :mad:
 
as a rule, irrigate anything with a cow, a wheat or a deer on it. Irrigate any grass with wine on it. Mine everything else. If you are agricultural, you can irrigate an oasis.

Once you are out of despotism, rules of thumb go out the door. if you want to plan for a GA, mining wheat, deer and wine on grass, and irrigating anything on plains will give a shield everywhere. You can also irrigate bonus grass if you need to balance out food.
 
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